From informal housing to apartment housing: exploring the ‘new social’ in a gecekondu rehousing project, Turkey

Abstract

This article engages with the question of the ‘new social’ that emerges in the relocation of the poor in slum renewal projects. Drawing upon both Lefebvre’s theorization of abstract space of capital and social space of people, and the neoliberal framework in which the economic dominates the social, the complex relationship between the spatial and the social embedded in political economy is demonstrated. In the Turkish context, the ‘new social’ is situated at the intersection of spatial transformations, housing representations, neoliberalism and Islam. In the housing estate of the case study, the abstract space was challenged by the bottom-up responses of some residents who tried to create their social space rooted in their previous experiences in the gecekondu; it was reacted by other residents who embraced the higher status of apartment living. The void produced by destroying the gecekondu habitus was filled by religious activities and consumption-inspired everyday practices.